


i know i love you (and you love the sea)

by hiensou



Category: Free!
Genre: 'I appreciate you being here for me' scene, Blow Jobs, Episode 11, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mild Body Worship?, and adding a lil lewd and some unnecessary inner monologues to them, u see i like taking canon meaningful mh moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 07:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5038657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiensou/pseuds/hiensou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As he ran through the dim-lit streets of Tokyo, cheeks flushed fiercely from the chill of the blue evening, he thought that holding back was possibly one of the most foolish and cowardly choices he had ever made. Voicing his appreciation for Makoto’s trustworthiness was a minute deed, although strongly done.<br/>But the fact remained well illuminated before his eyes: Makoto deserved more than that. He deserved more than half the truth. And if Haruka was right in assuming Makoto loved him just as much as he had always so inevitably loved Makoto, the boy deserved Haruka’s affections set free.</p><p> <i>I know I love you<br/>And you love the sea<br/>But what holy water contains a little drop, little drop for me?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	i know i love you (and you love the sea)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Makito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makito/gifts).



”I appreciate you being here for me.”

Makoto’s mind was a blank page; white static that couldn’t grip Haruka’s words from the air and string them together into anything coherent. He was tired, unprepared, and knew despite the incomprehensibility of Haruka’s timid, still-in-process declaration that these were words he _ought_ to hear. Words he ought to tattoo to the inside of his skull. Words Haruka had mustered the boldness to utter for god knows how long.

“Thank you.” he concluded, while still not being _quite_ finished. Makoto could sense something more, something that wasn’t going to tumble from his friend’s lips on its own accord. But currently, Makoto was too preoccupied with the swelling awe inside of him to fish those words out of Haruka. Instead, his body sprung to a sitting position, hair a rowdy chaos and tongue unable to formulate anything more articulate than Haruka’s name.

And Haruka, unavoidably abashed by his own courage, sat on the edge of his bed as well. His back was turned to Makoto, and though it was just a back—fully clad, and not able to reveal any expressions anyway—the brunet understood massive amounts by simply regarding it in anticipation.

Haruka rising to his feet was Haruka slipping through Makoto’s fingers like sand, but even so, he settled for laughing into his knuckles as the other boy quickly escaped the scene. Haruka needed time, he needed fresh air and contemplative solitude, so Makoto would let him have that. Haruka always came back to him. He never truly left.

The brunet did not know where his friend headed off to after that, and was absolutely unable to drift off into unconsciousness the way he had been halfway toward just a few minutes ago. Now, he had enough energy to swim a thousand laps. Now, he was wriggling his toes beneath the covers as he replayed that pair of noncomplex, marvellous sentences inside his head for the five-hundredth time. He did not know what he wanted to say to Haruka when he returned—if anything at all. Well, Makoto knew he _wanted_ to say something; what he did not know was whether or not he should.

Perhaps Haruka wanted not to lengthen this ordeal any further. It had been a matter he felt obliged to tell, perhaps, and nothing more. Maybe those words were as simple as they sounded, no undercurrent or promise of epilogue. The thought churned Makoto’s stomach; he wished for more, but he knew not what or why.

He was asking too much.

Haruka had given his thanks, which was all he needed to do.

Makoto hadn’t earned anything beyond that…

He was always content, getting to be with Haruka. Even when he was a thorn in the other’s side, they shared a mutual bond and he could always count on having some place to go, someone to walk with, if Haruka existed. However, the interest he had in Haruka that was rooted in something possibly more risky was the sole thing he could never quite categorise as reciprocal or not; as much as he and Haruka were able to read each other, this was a matter Makoto had never been able to fully decipher in the other.

There had been times when he was certain Haruka would all but melt in his arms if he took a chance and kissed him, but other times the notion seemed absurd.

And to Haruka, it was mostly evident what they both felt, but he was always too afraid to change what they had had for so long, even with the spontaneity of his soul. As he ran through the dim-lit streets of Tokyo, cheeks flushed fiercely from the chill of the blue evening, he thought that holding back was possibly one of the most foolish and cowardly choices he had ever made. Voicing his appreciation for Makoto’s trustworthiness was a minute deed, although strongly done.

But the fact remained well illuminated before his eyes: Makoto deserved more than that. He deserved more than half the truth. And if Haruka was right in assuming Makoto loved him just as much as he had always so inevitably loved Makoto, the boy deserved Haruka’s affections set free.

If Haruka was, had ever been, would ever be what Makoto desired, he deserved that and so much more.

* * *

 Makoto lay awake for what must have been over an hour when he finally realised he was wasting vital hours of sleep. Tomorrow they were getting up early, and Makoto could not arrive with bags under his eyes and a sore jaw from excessive yawning, especially not from sitting up proud and endeared by some simple thing Haruka had said to him.

Suddenly the lock turned, and the door creaked open with heavy bouts of uncertainty. Makoto sat himself up a little straighter against the headboard, wringing the fabric of his t-shirt between his hands as Haruka stepped into their shared room.

For an impossible amount of time, the two simply stared at each other. Makoto thought this must have been the first time in forever that he reached within those boundless blues and found nothing. Haruka just kept reaching back, but Makoto could not know what to offer.

Then, Haruka laid eyes on the nervous twisting of the other’s fingers, and swallowed visibly. He found himself decided as well as vaguely enraged after his run, knowing what he wanted to do but upset by the things he had realised, untangling and organising his thoughts about Makoto.

He rounded the brunet’s bed, gaze falling to his own feet, and he sat down again upon his own sheets with his front toward his roommate. The air was so heavy around Haruka that, surely, Makoto thought, there was an epilogue this time. He bit the insides of his cheeks restlessly.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Makoto soothed then, “You… You don’t owe me anything. But thank you, for what you said earlier. I’m happy to hear that…”

Haruka peeked through his jet lashes, sending Makoto’s heart into a somersault. He looked all but offended by his friend’s words, and Makoto could not for the life of him fathom why that would be.

Then, Haruka lifted his head, and as the feeble light bouncing off the moon into their secluded space reflected the glossiness of Haruka’s eyes, Makoto’s limbs were rendered mere icicles. What had Haruka found in his humble assurance that would make him cry?

“Haru…” Makoto swung his legs off the bed, sitting across from the other and leaning forward, as if wanting to graze his knees but not quite crossing that threshold.

“Do you honestly believe I don’t owe you anything?” Haruka breathed—hissed, almost—and balled his hands into fists on his thighs. “That no one owes you anything?”

Makoto watched him with a cocktail of apprehension and earnest filling him up.

“We owe you… _everything_ , Makoto,” Haruka leaned forward, as if it was of utmost importance that his words were arrows right in Makoto’s face. Like a threat spat, only softer: a desperate need to have Makoto hanging onto each syllable, taking them all in, tuning the universe out. “I if anyone owe you my honesty… and the things I’m not actually brave enough to say.”

Makoto gave him a puzzled look, but did not move an inch.

“You… You need to ask more of me,” Haruka looked haunted by a vicious anger, but the tears at the corners of his eyes were still nothing but exhaustion. “Ask me what I really want to say—no, what you really want to hear.”

The brunet shook his head, not quite understanding.

“Ask me.” Haruka provoked.

“Haru, I don’t—”

“ _Ask me_.”

Makoto’s eyebrows bunched together and he sighed through his nose, still seeking for as much as he could in Haruka’s face. It opened up completely for him, but he couldn’t grasp at what he saw.

“Haruka,” he said seriously, and the other’s shoulders tensed and relaxed before him, “Tell me… Tell me what you really want to say. What you don’t dare to say.”

Haruka’s eyes were challenging, even as he admitted some sort of defeat. “I never dared to say that… That I appreciate how you’re always there for me. Always.”

Makoto wore his trademark smile, and somehow it pissed Haruka off. “You told me that, though. And I… Thank you, for telling me.”

Haruka jumped to his feet, startling Makoto with a lackluster anger. Whatever exasperation Haruka was trying to convey was evidently undermined by sadness, and seeing Haruka sad in any way was always a stab wound in Makoto’s chest.

“Don’t thank me!” he snapped, and Makoto’s eyes travelled to the unsteady fists hanging by Haruka’s sides. “You should be saying, ‘you’re welcome—you’re welcome I’m always there, Haru-chan.’”

Makoto could only exhale in amusement at that. As if his lips could ever birth such an arrogant response. “You want me to call you Haru-chan?” he teased, and Haruka’s eyes practically screamed at him. It efficiently killed the grin on Makoto’s face. “Sorry…”

“You deserve more gratitude and praise than I can give you, don’t you realise that?” Haruka all but spat—but not with venom at Makoto; at the world, at himself.

“I… What do you want me to do, Haru?” Makoto’s eyebrows knit together, “I only want you to say what you’re comfortable saying.”

Haruka stared him down with a tremble to his breaths, a moment or two passing before he tentatively reached out and held his fingertips to Makoto’s chest. “You know that people around you treat you wrong. You know it.”

Makoto’s gaze fell to the floor. He always, always repressed any such thoughts, but Haruka was correct if he assumed they existed. Makoto was guiltier about them than anything else, and maybe they were what drew so much generosity and self-sacrifice from him. It wasn’t right of him to feel mistreated or forgotten by his friends, it wasn’t right of him to feel like a second choice when he offered up his entire being. He chose to do so himself, they never asked him to. He was in the wrong for expecting anything in return. So he didn’t. He strangled any natural instinct to do so, and detested these instincts’ adamant will to live.

And now, Haruka was prompting him to express such feelings openly. He could not for the life of him understand why.

“You know it.” the other insisted. “You know that you give all you have and receive less than half in return. You know you’re being taken for granted.”

“Haru, no,” he shook his head, “You’re making me up to be some kind of martyr. I’m not—”

“Aren’t you?” the raven-haired boy pressed further.

“Can we please just go to bed?” Makoto’s voice wavered dangerously, and as Haruka’s hands took a hold of his face, he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Ask me again,” Haruka initiated, voice having fallen to a soft, velvety touch, “Ask me to be completely honest.”

Makoto breathed heavily, all of a sudden, and refused to meet both Haruka’s request and his eyes. Even as he felt thumbs stroke the apples of his cheeks, making him wonder what the hell was happening between them, why they were so alarmingly close to the usual looks of Makoto’s dreams, what Haruka intended with these provoking insistences that were so unlike him, and yet exactly what Makoto had expected him to explode into.

“Be…” Makoto attempted, any resemblance of confidence in his words falling flat, “Be honest with me, Haru.”

Haruka tilted the other boy’s face upward, forcing their gazes together. Makoto looked uneasy and lost, and Haruka thought he might have just been about to add insult to injury, but yet he shed a whisper that Makoto could feel on his face and inside his spinning head. “Then, I'll kiss you.”

The brunet winced with a quiet gasp as if having stung his fingertip on a needle, pushing down the pained surprise to concentrate on finding any improbable humour or malice in the brilliance of Haruka’s exposed emotions. When he saw none, Makoto lifted himself to his feet swiftly, and scooped his head down to collide his lips with those of his childhood friend.

Haruka kissed him back readily, albeit with an ounce of uncertainty to it, because that’s just whom he was. Haruka, who had never loved anyone this way before Makoto. Haruka, who had never been even remotely interested in being touched like this before Makoto. Haruka, who would never force himself so far out of his own comfort zone for anyone but Makoto, as he knew that even outside his comfort zone he was safe, if it were Makoto.

The brunet could tell by the sigh on his lips that he no longer doubted what he wanted, not one bit, and by the quiver in his digits as they slid down the column of Makoto’s throat, he could tell Haruka was faltering despite this.

A deep, fumbling, incomprehensibly perfect kiss bled into smaller, scattered pecks until they merely hovered by each other’s faces, Haruka watching the faint freckles of Makoto’s nose be cornered by a blush, and Makoto watching the stars behind his eyelids.

“I-It’s always…” Haruka began, a hoarse weakness to his tone, “hard for me to say how I feel.”

“I know, Haru…”

“And this is…” he bumped their noses together, “This is why it’s extra hard, when it’s you. B-But also why it’s extra important I say it anyway.”

Makoto, for once, found himself a little speechless, and simply continued to watch the blackness of his closed eyes, continued to hold Haruka’s upper arms with a childlike ecstasy stirring inside him over it.

It was a breath-taking experience, being held by Makoto, and Haruka couldn’t help but be a little greedy, snuggling himself closer to the other and ensnarling his waist with possessive arms. Makoto ran a hand up Haruka’s neck into his smooth locks, beckoning sighs laced with mild moaning from him. Then, Haruka couldn’t help but be a little selfish, and so he backed Makoto up toward the bed, stopping once the edge of it seemed to have bumped the back of the brunet’s knees. “Can you… get on the bed?” Haruka requested in a shy mutter, to which Makoto released a faint gasp.

The taller boy pulled back to glance down at Haruka, silently asking ‘do you mean what I think you mean?’ and ‘are you sure?’

Haruka looked back at him with an unsaid ‘yes’.

He continued to look at Makoto as the latter sat on the bed, Haruka slipping from his hands again but not out of his sight. The brunet scooted back on the bed, resting himself against the headboard and looking awfully nervous, but then again, Haruka felt just as nervous, so he wasn’t one to judge.

However, Makoto’s eyes shone with a tint of hopefulness, too, so Haruka climbed onto the bed as well, fitting perfectly in between Makoto’s twitching legs with palms planted on either side of him.

“Is this you showing your appreciation, Haru?” Makoto laughed, and Haruka thought he was right in that, but chose to dive in for Makoto’s collarbone in lieu of answering.

Makoto’s chest inflated as he watched Haruka kiss the prominence of his clavicle through the shirt, and he pressed the insides of his thighs against the other boy’s ribs as if to reassure his presence. His presence so close to Makoto, so real. Haruka himself couldn’t quite believe he’d gotten himself in between Makoto’s legs, or his hands underneath Makoto’s shirt.

He decided to take advantage of Makoto’s permission as much as he could, killing two birds with one stone, namely: acting out his self-indulgent interest as well as adoring Makoto in the most apparent non-verbal way he currently could.

He soon tired of the piece of clothing that separated his mouth from direct access to Makoto’s chest and pulled the hem up, signalling for Makoto to slip out of the garment. He obliged with a giggle and shivered pleasantly when lips we’re suddenly lavishing kisses to his upper body and hands were spreading a foreign chilliness up and down his waist.

Haruka kissed his skin with a sort of unhurried urgency, desperately tasting Makoto, but taking his time doing so. Makoto’s head was hazy watching Haruka, and he squirmed as the latter’s mouth engulfed his nipple and sucked on it hungrily.

Even with just his upper body being touched, Makoto’s crotch was stirring hotly. It seemed that, despite him not having been aroused or even in the mood before, it was something else entirely when it was his best friend. Thinking about it like that, however, made his head swim; it wasn’t his best friend, it was Haru. The two of them weren’t friends, they weren’t partners. They were simply Makoto and Haruka. It was different.

And it was Haruka’s mouth on his body. Haruka’s fingers threatening to dip underneath his pants.

Likewise, Haruka found himself nearly giddy as he muffled his faint noises against the other’s chest. He, on the other hand, wasn’t really being touched at all—save for the caresses and squeezes Makoto provided his back and his arms—and yet he was painfully hard, boxers feeling like a cage around his slim hips.

Because, likewise, it being Makoto he was allowed to suckle and grasp at to his heart’s content messed with his head. He just had to moan as he licked down the firmness of Makoto’s abdominals, enticed by the mere concept of finally handling this bright, dazzling boy in the manner he only allowed himself to imagine when his bedroom was so dark he couldn’t see his own hand.

Overcome by a current of wanton and gratification—strangely unsatisfied gratification—Haruka held himself farther up with his arms and rutted his hips forward: a bold but well-appreciated move.

Makoto clenched his legs around Haruka and let out a breathy whimper, Haruka having to close his eyes from the overwhelmingly attractive sight of Makoto’s beautiful features twisting in pleasure.

He rolled his hips forward a few more times, dragging his crotch back and forth over Makoto’s. _It has never been this good with my hand,_ fleeted across Haruka’s mind, and his cheeks heated rapidly.

“Ha-Haru…” Makoto reached for Haruka’s waist, holding him as he moved in repetition, “It doesn’t feel weird… to you?” he was temporarily interrupted by a kiss to his throat, “That—That it’s me? Us?”

“ _Ahh_ ,” Haruka groaned, his mouth wide open around the other’s adam’s apple, “No… I—” Haruka silenced, hips hitching into stillness and chills erupting on his skin, leaving goose bumps and standing hairs in their wake.

“ _Oh_ , Haru,” Makoto exclaimed softly, stuffing his fingers down the hem of Haruka’s pants to rest against the warmth there, and his cheek to Haruka’s cheek, loving and familiar, “I didn’t mean that I thought it felt weird…! It feels… It—It feels… Really perfect...” His voice fell quieter the more he said, and he concluded his sheepish explanation with another giggle. Haruka’s goose bumps remained, but their reason was altered. “I was just—”

“Making sure _I_ was okay?” Haruka craned his head back to look Makoto in the eye, conveying disapproval even as he sat up on his knees and pulled demandingly at the brunet’s waistband. “Don’t do that. Not… Not here. I’m fine. I’m trying to make sure _you’ll_ be fine, too. Just let me…”

Makoto bit down on both his lips and let his face be painted an intense scarlet from within. At Haruka’s indirect plea he lifted his hips, hands quivering violently with nervousness as he slipped his pyjamas pants and underwear off his legs.

Haruka’s reaction would have been funny had Makoto not been so embarrassed. The dark-haired boy flushed curiously and combed a hand through his bangs, eyes large with something akin to shock but shimmering in the same fashion they would, had there been a pool in front of Haruka.

Makoto covered his face with both his hands, feeling as if smoke would shoot from his ears at any moment.

“ _Haru_ …” he whined, but Haruka ignored his misery to rub the skin beneath his hipbones, ogling his naked length for a while more before clasping it surprisingly firmly in his hand. Makoto flinched slightly and released a weak gasp, at which Haruka immediately let go again.

“Sorry,” he muttered, right hand lingering in the air by Makoto’s erection and left hand sneaking around his thigh to stroke the outside of it. “I need to calm down…”

Makoto couldn’t help but chuckle. “That’s kind of flattering, you know.”

“Good.” Haruka blushed even deeper, gripping Makoto once more with added delicacy. Makoto reacted with a little jerk of his body nonetheless, though, the feeling of somebody else’s hand on him excitingly alien. Haruka inclined an eyebrow and began to rub the boy up and down, sucking his own bottom lip with a contemplative yearning.

Makoto could tell right away that it would doubtlessly be a short session, what with the coolness of Haruka’s palm and the contrasting heat of his gaze.

Haruka flicked his hand with a confident purpose and thumbed the head of Makoto’s cock as if already savvy about how Makoto’s body worked. Adding to that notion, he cupped Makoto’s balls with his free hand, which Makoto knew from locker-room conversation was a love or hate move that varied for each individual. As it happened, Makoto was one to tilt his head back, veins protruding on his neck; curve his spine deliciously, grip the sheets with knuckles turned pale enough to match the fabric, and moan hoarsely, a sound that Haruka fancied so much he had to reply with a shortened one of his own.

Haruka forgot about his own erection completely, focus chained to the quickening pace of his own hand, and the mesmerizing, purely picturesque scenery splayed out on the bed before him.

He could tell Makoto’s daze wavered occasionally, at which he wore a thoughtful expression which Haruka simply knew had to do with his own neglect. Not wanting to hear or see Makoto try to be unselfish again, he dipped down in a robotic motion, hesitant but earnest as he took the tip in his mouth.

In an instant, Makoto’s fingers were there to brush his bangs aside as if soothingly telling him he did not have to do this. It only filled Haruka with twice the purposefulness, however, and while he wasn’t brave enough to try to take very much into his admittedly narrow—not to mention inexperienced—mouth, he sucked the head as well as he could, still jerking the base with his hand.

Makoto’s breathing was inconsistent and his hips fought not to thrust his swollen cock down Haruka’s throat, rapture a flood in his veins. He whined Haruka’s name every now and then, meek and pleading, always punctuated with fleeting, airy moans.

He caressed whatever part of Haruka he could reach, down behind his ears and into his hair, tugging feebly at the locks and grasping at his shoulders. He stretched his legs out, toes curling and uncurling against Haruka’s thighs, body as a whole just wanting as much physical contact with the other boy as it could possibly receive.

Haruka hummed around his girth on occasion, and dragged his own crotch absent-mindedly over the mattress.

His mind was a jumble of Makoto’s scent, his taste, his hard muscles and soft skin. Haruka’s thoughts were a train crash since long by now, marvelling at getting to suck the brunet off—such an impure but exquisite act, which no one they knew would ever expect him to perform, surely. He himself would never have thought, at least. But as he opened his eyes and glanced at Makoto’s dishevelled face from beneath his body, he couldn’t help but think, where else in the world would he possibly be, if not here?

He removed his face from Makoto’s crotch for a minute, slowing the motion of his hand but increasing the strength of his hold, and with added intensity to his gingerly fondling of the brunet’s sac.

“I’m—I’m close… Really… Ah,” Makoto all but wheezed out, body tense and quaking. Haruka leaned down and kissed his thigh slowly, as Makoto continued, “I can’t… believe… it’s Haru, getting me off, y’know?” he laughed with slight irregularity, voice catching repeatedly as involuntary noises were drawn from him, by virtue of Haruka’s skilful hands.

Haruka scoffed quietly at that, gazing at Makoto with a devilish countenance, the likes of which Makoto had never seen his friend wear before. He couldn’t quite say he disliked it, however, though it had him even more starstruck than before.

“You’ve gotten me off plenty of times, though.” Haruka stated, and Makoto had to crease his brow in puzzlement.

“I have?”

Haruka gave a lick to the head of Makoto’s cock, looking pleased by his own cheekiness, but face hueing darker anyway. “You… have no idea…” he purred, “how many times I’ve gotten off to the thought of you.”

A shiver spread through Makoto’s entire being, he’d swear, and his moan was loud, bouncing off the walls around them. The snatch of Haruka’s wrist changed angle, and Makoto’s hands sought desperately for something to hold onto, eventually landing on the headboard above him. His pleasure reared and he let his jaw fall open in quiet anticipation of that ephemeral instance of unchallenged bliss, just prior to his peak and descent.

“Oh—” Makoto sobbed out, “Oh my god, Haru…” He couldn’t feel Haruka’s hand leave his sac to caress along his leg affectionately, senses tapering to allow nothing more but the acute physical elation into his focus. “ _Haru_ , oh my god… _I love you_ , I lo—ah— _fuck_!”

He saw white as he forced his eyes shut and tensed his arms, gripping the headboard with a powerful ecstasy he could not contain.

Haruka himself was moaning around Makoto as the latter came, lifting his tongue to the roof of his mouth so as to not choke on his fluids. When it became too much, he parted from in between Makoto’s legs, carelessly letting the rest of his come land on Haruka’s t-shirt as he jerked him dry.

He swallowed with a grimace, but couldn’t say it tasted particularly bad. Just odd. It felt dirty to have done so, however, and Haruka had to bite his already swollen lip not to grin in peccant contentedness.

Makoto’s hand came down to rest atop Haruka’s own, telling him it was enough in Makoto’s voice’s stead, which was currently busy panting and whimpering Haruka’s name like a recurring chorus. Haruka retrieved his hand, a little stiff in the joints, and pulled his dirtied night shirt off himself. The moment he threw it off the bed, Makoto pushed upward to catch Haruka in his arms and bring him down with him. Haruka easily returned the embrace as Makoto’s limbs gradually shredded their trembles and as the planes of his face softened. Haruka felt warm inside, watching it, and thumbing the hollow where Makoto’s shoulder met his neck with tender adoration.

“I…” Makoto breathed, but failed to formulate anything beyond that. Haruka smiled at him, and Makoto had to smile back—flattered and endearing—and huff out a little laugh.

Haruka closed his eyes and tilted his forehead to Makoto’s chest. Laying his cheek upon the other’s head, Makoto whispered, “That was unlike Haru.”

Haruka let out a little ‘hmpf’ and shook his head somewhat. “It’s just—It’s just a side you haven’t seen before.”

“Ah, true,” Makoto wrapped his arms tightly around the other, kissing the top of his head fleetingly. “I’m glad you showed me.”

“I’m glad you’re glad,” Haruka retorted softly, luring another short laugh from the brunet, “Do you… Do you know now, how much I…?”

“Haru,” Makoto said deeply, in a would-be-stern tone had it not been spiked with so much warmth. “I always knew. You don’t have to _prove_ your appreciation. I… I mean, it makes me happy when you _say_ it, but I’ll believe you when you do. There’s no need to—”

“Stop with that, you idiot,” Haruka nudged his head into the middle of Makoto’s chest in reprimand. “Just stop it.”

Makoto’s eyes darted to the window, and the bustle of lights outside of it. The room was rather dark despite street lights, cars and illuminated buildings, however, and he closed his eyes, hoping to be able to drift off quickly.

“We should sleep.” he murmured, and although Haruka held him closer, his silence was somehow still a bit heavy. Makoto pecked his hair again for good measure and felt the boy rub his cheek against Makoto’s chest. It let him know things were going to be okay, somehow. 

* * *

 

They both found it rather easy to doze off, the hour late and both boys physically spent. Haruka found his still very alive boner a bit intruding, but had no particularly strong sexual desire after having finished what he sought out to do, anyway. Makoto was his priority that night, and his own roused body would find rest either way.

He woke up two hours later, however, swaying in and out of consciousness for a minute before finally gathering where he was and who was holding him so securely. The realisation made him feel as if flowers were blooming inside his chest; an entire garden planted by Makoto without his own knowledge. Makoto was beautiful like that. He made Haruka feel beautiful things.

Haruka gazed at his face, assessing every plane of it and stuffing it in his memory for possible lives to come. He decided that this face, if anything, was what he wanted to always remember. The curve of those cheekbones, the strength of that jaw, the slope of those brows, the incontestable benevolence existing somehow through strokes of green, momentarily veiled from his sight, but that he knew—could not understand, but knew—was there. Would always be there. For him. For him alone. For all the world to see, but only for Haruka to be invited by.

He breathed deeply through his nostrils, sneaking further into Makoto’s embrace. His face fitted well against the dent where the other’s neck met his shoulder, and Haruka buried his nose there, kissing the clavicle and smelling comfort (with a hint of oranges).

“Everybody here could want you,” Haruka murmured against him, words hot and anguished against Makoto’s bronzed skin, “But none of them deserve you. None of them.”

He received no reply, but felt no sorrow whatsoever about it. More so, it was Haruka’s intention to not be heard. Thus he continued, “Not even me, I’m pretty sure… But I—”

Makoto wriggled a little against him, repositioning his head on the pillow. Haruka’s heart hitched like a scratched record, but instead of falling silent in embarrassment, he craned his neck backward to meet Makoto’s sleeping face and raised his voice from a whisper to a murmur: “I’m—I’m happy you’re happy to be with me. Because I know you are. You’re the only one I can be fully sure of that with. Thank you.”

The other slept on.

“Thank you.” Haruka repeated, his voice thick. “Thank you… I love you.”

No response.

“I’ll never stop… striving to be a good enough person to deserve you.”

…

“That’s why you’re so… That’s… You make me want to be so much better. You do so much for me. I never see how I’m worth it—how any of us could be worth it.”

…

“I love you. Hey,” Haruka snivelled, failing to give a damn about that fact, and shaking Makoto’s shoulder with ardor. “Hey, Makoto.” He reached for the other boy’s face, caressing his cheek with a feathery touch, and then pinching it gently. Makoto’s eye twitched, and he gave a disoriented groan. The groan bled into a word—Haruka’s name—and the latter, brimmed with a sudden torrent of stinging adoration, captured Makoto’s jawline with his palms and said in a voice too loud to blend with the sleepy sway of the night: “I love you.”

The other boy’s eyelids remained closed, but his expression switched and his chest expanded with a long breath. There was something practiced about the way he snaked his arms more snugly around Haruka, like this was a situation they’d found themselves in countless times before, which, according to Haruka’s memory, was not the case. He softened in those arms as if practiced, too, and nudged the tip of his nose against Makoto’s chin.

“There’s something extraordinarily beautiful about hearing those words in _your_ voice, Haru.”

“Ah…” Haruka drove his hands up Makoto’s back, noting and adoring the broadness of it. He pressed his cheek back against Makoto’s chest, lulled closer to a state of unconsciousness as the tick-tock indicating Makoto’s very existence echoed in his ear. His skin and his senses tingled as fingers combed through his hair, massaging his scalp with a delicacy unimaginable for a hand capable of such strength.

“Let’s do our best tomorrow, hm?”

Haruka’s lips fell open against Makoto’s shoulder, the petting of his hair like a mild morphine. Makoto’s chuckle was a gust of air across Haruka’s bangs, and he sent him into sleep with a whisper that took the form of ocean foam in Haruka’s dreams: “You’ll always be worth it, Haruka.”

**Author's Note:**

> happy belated birthday maki!!! this is kinda short and all but after we ranted abt makoto's mistreatment for the nth time @ togethertube i discarded my original bday fic idea and threw this together instead aha.. u awakened the bitter monster inside me gurl  
> again, i hope ur special day was as fantastic as u are, filled with lotsa love and laughter and tachibooties <3
> 
> title & description quote is from 'Unbelievers' by Vampire Weekend which as a whole doesn't have much to do with this fic at all but i love this line in particular and wanted to use it somehow
> 
> thanks to shinx for beta'ing!


End file.
